


I hope that you...

by Fangirlingmanaged



Series: Even More Angst Nobody Asked For (AKA Bonus Content) [11]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aunt Peggy Carter, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Protective Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Feels, Tony Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 05:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7877773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlingmanaged/pseuds/Fangirlingmanaged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hell hath no fury like a *man scorned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I hope that you...

**Author's Note:**

> Let's play a game! Finish the Hamilton lyric

There are a total of three people alive, at the moment when it happens, that understand what Tony goes through the day that his aunt dies. Okay, understand is probably the wrong word for it; it’s more like they know what Tony _will_ go through once the chips have fallen. Rhodey calls as soon as he hears, which is late because he’d been engaged in some super-secret military thing when it happened and not around the facility, and by extension, Tony.

Fury, of course, doesn’t call. Tony can’t even admit that it distantly hurts. There’s so much pain being piled up on him that the fact that the one eyed wonder doesn’t bother to offer his condolences doesn’t really register. (Or, more likely, isn’t allowed to register.) He’s probably not willing to disclose his super-secret location for someone as lowly as Tony, anyway.

What hurts, for real and with an ache like the car battery getting wet in Afghanistan, is the fact that _she_ doesn’t call. He and Pepper had met at a point in his life where he wasn’t quite as dependent on his Aunt Peggy as he’d been when he was younger. He hadn’t visited her at the home as frequently as he probably should have. Though he’d never admit it to anyone, the pain of having her confuse him with his father had slowly gotten to be a little too much for his insecure self to handle. Pepper had found out about her one day when he’d disappeared and she’d been sent to find him. She had, of course, expected to find him in some crack den or sex house. Instead, she’d tracked him down to a senior home and found him laughing with an elderly woman who spoke with an English accent and called him Howard.

Aunt Peggy was the only person ever allowed to speak his name in front of Tony.

Pepper had never denied him his visiting days from that day forth. She hadn’t asked either, which Tony had found relieving. She didn’t find out who she was until months into their relationship. Tony forgets what arbitrary anniversary he’d used to drink, but Pepper had found him in the penthouse. Sitting in front of the panoramic window in nothing but his boxers and a white button down. A bottle of scotch and a tumbler with ice sitting by his side. She’d silently sat next to him and brought his head to rest against her shoulder. With her fingers carding through his hair, he’d told her all about one of the only people who had ever been anything like family to him.

So despite their split, when the time came, Tony had naively expected her to call. Maybe to even show up and offer some comfort. When she didn’t, something inside of Tony irrevocably shattered. Despite his reasoning, his so-called-genius mind and his history of disappointments, he couldn’t deny that something broke inside of him that day.

Steve had left by that point, after their latest ugly fight, so there was no one, really. He’d packed up and left Tony to pick up the pieces of the family he’d broken. Ironically, that’s what had worried Tony the most. Margaret Carter might have been his Aunt Peggy, but she had been Steve’s _girl_. Tony knew the soldier had carried a torch for her long after he’d woken up and found out what her illness had done. As soon as he’d heard, Tony had tried to reach him, but his search had come back unsuccessful. Apparently, Steve had disposed of his Starkphone.

Tony had refused to think about how much that stung.

Still, she had been _his_ , too. She was _his_ Aunt Peggy. The only person brave enough to buy him normal toys when he was a kid. (His favorites being a Batmobile and a Captain America action figure with a removable cowl.) She was the only one who had made him super-secret-spy hot chocolate when he had a nightmare. She was the only one brave enough to question his father’s parenting skills out right even if it resulted with her visiting privileges being revoked. She might have been Steve’s ideal girl and Sharon’s blood, but she was _his_ to in an irrevocable way he would never be able to explain.

Natasha had found him the next day, hacking into private e-mails and SHIELD files. Apparently, those nuts kept tabs on their agents even after they’d retired. Finding Aunt Peggy’s funeral information hadn’t been hard. Finding the list of attendants was even easier. Yup, one glowing red, white, and blue sporting blond was to be in attendance, carry her casket, and even make a speech. Tony wasn’t even considered to be sat in the last pew.

“What are you doing, Stark?” he didn’t flinch. By then, he was already well used to her super-spy skills. He turned to find her staring at him with her piercing green eyes.

“I have to go,” was the only reply he could give her.

“Let him have this, Tony. Now’s probably not the best time to—“

“It’s not that,” he’d interrupted her. It came out as a growl, and Tasha raised an eyebrow at him. He had been frustrated because it wasn’t the first thing he’d done that wasn’t about Steve. Well, at least it wasn’t _all_ about the blond.

“I understand that you’re trying to be supportive—“

“Tasha, no,” he had said forcefully. Suddenly, he had been bursting to tell someone about her. To talk through his grief, and maybe Tasha could help. “I have to go. I have to say goodby.”

Tasha had opened her mouth, probably to keep admonishing him, and Tony had prepared himself to defend his stand. She hadn’t said anything, though. Tony’s nervousness had amped up as she had kept scrutinizing him. Finally, she exhaled quietly. Something akin to warm understanding had softened her gaze. “Oh, Tony,” and he had averted his gaze. So now there was another person who knew.

“I have to say goodbye to Aunt Peggy,” he’d said, and the words had choked in his throat. She was gone. Oh, God, the last of his family was gone. “She’s mine,” he’d repeated stubbornly, and he couldn’t see Tasha through the tears. “I have to say goodbye to my Aunt.”

“Okay, Tony,” Tasha had said, and it sounded like someone trying to placate a small child. At the moment, he hadn’t cared. He would learn to cherish that moment. Tasha had taken his hand and held tight. “We’ll go.”

                                                                                      ***

So that’s how he had found himself sitting in the last pew in a church in London. People he did and didn’t know sung Peggy’s praises. His gaze had been riveted in the back of the blond head sitting at the very first pew. Steve hadn’t noticed him when he’d carried Peggy’s casket in. Tony had wanted to hold him tight when he saw the stoic mask he wore. Maybe they could have made up, somehow. If they’d both been able to talk about their grief, but Steve didn’t know that Peggy had been so essential to Tony or that the billionaire was even there.

So he’d hid in the last pew, behind his sunglasses and with Tasha’s hand wrapped tightly around his as the ceremony proceeded.

When it was Steve’s turn to go up, as the pamphlet in his hand said, they skipped right through. Steve remained sitting in his pew, head bowed, as Sharon Carter walked up. She was as pretty as Tony remembered she’d been when she was in high school. Though her eyes were red rimmed and she had to clear her throat before she began her speech, she was beautiful. And as her voice grew stronger through her speech, Tony could see those flecks of Peggy the girl had always possessed.

Steve’s head snapped up to watch her. He’d been bowed down since he sat, but once she began to speak, he listened. Something heavy dropped from Tony’s chest to about his navel.

The rest of the ceremony went by in a blur. Tony watched it all like a person watching a video being fast-forwarded. After Sharon, there were only a handful of speakers and then everyone walked out of the church. For Tony, everything went in slow-motion after that.

Steve remained stubbornly inside, glancing up at the stained glass behind the podium. His fists were tightly clenched at his sides. Tasha and Tony quietly got up and stood in the aisle, in the cusp of one of those critical moment before a decision. Tony could feel her watching him, waiting for him to decide one way or the other, and he was infinitely grateful for her then.

He let go of her hand after one last fortifying squeeze, and took a single step in Steve’s direction, but he was too late. Seemingly out of nowhere, Sharon walked up to him, and Tony watched the exact moment when he lost him. She said something to him quietly, he’d replied in an even softer tone, and then he was in her arms. He was clutching at her the same way he would at Tony after a nightmare

“Oh,” was all that tony was able to say. It was as though the word had been punched out of him. He bit his lip to keep from sobbing.

He staggered backwards as if he’d been dealt with a physical blow.

“Tony,” Tasha said quietly and he could hear the pity and the anger in her tone. She grabbed his arm, but he shook her off. He shook his head, at her or him or them, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he never should have gone. He had overreached, and it had cost him. It had cost him what little was left of his heart.

He walked past her with a determined stride. He turned and left behind what he’d lost. What, apparently, he’d never even had. He had thought he should have worried about Barnes, but it looked like he was wrong about that, too. He decided, in that moment, that it was the last time he would let Steve hurt him. From that point on, things were going to be played by his rules.

Tony had tried and suffered by talking. It seemed like Steve preferred someone who took action. So Tony would. He would do whatever it took to salvage what they had broken in the world. And, fuck it all, if that meant Steve had to burn with him then so be it.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, God, why did i write this. Now I'm hella sad.


End file.
